Accessibility: 
Geographic coordinates: 44° 00' 54" N 68° 43' 36" W
Nearest town: Vinalhaven. Located about three miles southeast of the southeast corner of Vinalhaven Island, Isle au Haut Bay.
Established: 1839. Present lighthouse built: 1839. Automated: 1954.
Height of tower: 42 feet. Height of focal plane: 52 feet.
Earlier optic: Fourth-order Fresnel lens. Present optic: 300 mm.
Characteristic: White flash every 6 seconds.
Fog signal: One blast every 10 seconds.
Designed by noted architect and engineer Alexander Parris, this granite lighthouse was an expensive one for its day at $15,000. An attached wooden building was added later. The lower floor of the building was a boathouse, and two rooms for keepers were located on the second floor. Incredibly, for many years before the attached building was added, the upper part of the tower was home to the keepers and their families.
The first keeper was Watson Y. Hopkins. He painted a dismal picture of the living conditions at the lighthouse in an 1843 report: “My family consists of nine persons. There is a living room and two chambers in the tower, besides a cellar. The iron railing, which was secured to the rock around the tower, has been all swept away; also, the privy, which was carried away the first storm after its erection. The windows all leak in storms.”
Saddleback Ledge has no soil, so the keepers brought soil from the mainland each spring and planted a few vegetables and flowers. The soil would inevitably be swept away by winter storms.
By the 1920s, Saddleback Ledge had become a stag station attended by male keepers only. The light was automated in 1954, and the keepers were removed. The keeper’s dwelling was blown up as a Green Beret assault exercise around 1960.
This remote lighthouse can be seen from the “Lighthouses Boat Trip” offered by Old Quarry Ocean Adventures (207-367-8977, www.oldquarry.com) of Stonington. Lighthouse cruises offered by the Isle au Haut Company in Stonington (207-367-5193, www.isleauhaut.com) also provide a view, weather permitting.
Fascinating Fact 
In 1836, three years before the light was established, the ship Royal Tar, carrying circus performers and animals, caught fire and sank near Saddleback Ledge.
